The iPhone Will Soon Launch into Outer Space

It’s where no phone has ever gone before. Next month, the iPhone – for the first time ever – will make its way into deep space.

Tentatively scheduled for July 8, NASA’s final planned space shuttle mission (insert sad face here), STS-135, plans to bring two iPhone 4s along for the ride. The space shuttle Atlantis will be making its way to the International Space Station for a 12-day rendezvous.

These iPhones will be preloaded with an experimental app called Space Lab and distributed to crew members. The app is also available for just a buck in the App Store here on Earth. Crew members will leverage the app to conduct four experiments using the iPhone’s gyroscope and other sensors.

The app’s designers reflected on the not-so-significant-but-yet-so-significant event, saying they were “pretty sure this is the very first iPhone to go into space.” Like all good spacecraft passengers, the crew will also be switching the phones to “Airplane Mode” during the launch.

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Apple fanboys everywhere.